


we used to be friends, a long time ago

by jumpitorloseit



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Noir, Alternate Universe - Veronica Mars Fusion, Detective Noir, Eventual Happy Ending, M/M, PI Sammy Stevens, Private Investigators, SAMMY STEVENS TEEN DETECTIVE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 23:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18434033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jumpitorloseit/pseuds/jumpitorloseit
Summary: Sammy exited the sheriff's department and walked down the stairs where Ben was sitting in his mom’s van, waiting for Sammy. His grip on the steering wheel was white knuckled and he hadn’t bothered to even put the car in park. Sammy threw open the passenger seat and flopped in, rolling his eyes at Ben, “Ben, you’re not a getaway car, you’re just my ride.”Ben grinned sheepishly, “you’re tampering with police evidence, Sammy!”“To save your ass, might I remind you,” Sammy countered and buckled as Ben pulled away from the curb. Ben wasn’t in trouble with the law, obviously, Ben, not unlike Troy, seemed remarkably untainted by King Falls’s shady underbelly. Well, underbelly seemed a stretch, the corruption was hardly concealed. He wondered, often, how the hell people like Troy and Ben were supposed to survive this place and come out the other side just as wide-eyed and good to their core as when they came in. That was the thing about King Falls, it changed you, it had changed Sammy.





	we used to be friends, a long time ago

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, yes, hello. A Veronica Mars fusion? Really? Yes, really. I don't know if the King Falls AM fandom and the Veronica Mars fandom's venn diagram just has me in the middle, but maybe there's a few of you! I promise not just VM fans will get stuff from this though.
> 
> This has a little bit of repressed Sammy TM, but mostly its depressed Sammy TM meets a sassy Veronica Mars personality, so even though yes, OF COURSE, he pines for Jack the whole time, there's not a lot of internalized homophobia parsed out. That would probably have been more of his inner dialogue from BEFORE where this story picks up.
> 
> if you reading this happen to be a Veronica Mars fan already, here's a tiny little sorry to diehard LoVe shippers. When I decided I wanted to try my hand at this fusion and was kind of trying to figure out the story and who was who, I played with maybe Lily being, well, Lily Kane, but I reaaaaaally didn't want to kill her, but more than that even, would that make Jack DUNCAN, could I really do that to him? And then I was like he could just be logan and just be lily's sister instead of her ex boyfriend, but sure we've only had about thirty seconds with Jack Wright but we've heard his sweet perfect laugh and he just isn't King Falls High's designated psychotic asshole, but LILY on the other hand. Plus Sammy and Lily's antagonistic former friend relationship is such good Logan Veronica fodder. SO Lily is sort of the stand in for Logan minus ALL THE ROMANCE. Plus Sammy grieving Jack is already written into his character, so he's the stand in for Lily Kane.
> 
> Other than that, Emily - Mack, Ben - Wallace (go on WEEP WITH THE SWEETNESS OF THAT), Pete Meyers - Weevil (I know, I know, but who else is as chaotic neutral, Jacob Williams is in an actual gang, so maybe I should have gone that direction but COULD ANYONE TAKE JACOB WILLIAMS SERIOUSLY AS ELI NAVARRO), and then kind of Troy - Leo
> 
> Also I didn't replace Dick Casablancas. Dick is Dick. But he's also BARELY in the story, so.
> 
> There's a bit of weirdness with what I did about Keith Mars, because I didn't like want to make any existing King Fall's characters Sammy's dad? So he's just sort of mentioned and very not present.
> 
> All bolded quotes are dialogue and text from the show itself.

“Sammy Stevens, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Troy Krieghauser’s smile, while wide and genuine, could hardly be considered an easy one. One rarely saw a Sammy without an agenda, and certainly not at the Sheriff’s office, so it was wise to be on your guard.

“I need a favor.”

Troy, to his credit, did not roll his eyes although that specific reaction would have been appropriate, “of course you do.”

Sammy handed over a manilla envelope, inside this envelope was a USB that contained footage of a particularly damning interaction outside the Camelot Hotel featuring a certain deputy (not Troy, of course), an enormous amount of cash changing hands, and what looked like a rather large amount of cocaine. There were also instructions to replace the USB sitting in Gunderson’s office with this one.

“How illegal is this?” Troy asked barely containing his sigh.

“Not nearly as illegal as whatever the hell your boss is doing his best to cover-up.”

With that, Troy’s eyebrows unfurrowed and he grabbed the envelope and shoved it in his bag, “you can count on me, little buddy.”

Troy was one of the few cops who hadn’t gone dirty when Sammy’s dad had been voted out of the Sheriff’s seat over a year ago. He was a paragon of goodness in a town that had gone bad a long time ago.

Sammy exited the building and walked down the stairs where Ben was sitting in his mom’s van, waiting for Sammy. His grip on the steering wheel was white knuckled and he hadn’t bothered to even put the car in park. Sammy threw open the passenger seat and flopped in, rolling his eyes at Ben, “Ben, you’re not a getaway car, you’re just my ride.”

Ben grinned sheepishly, “you’re tampering with police evidence, Sammy!”

“To save your ass, might I remind you,” Sammy countered and buckled as Ben pulled away from the curb. Ben wasn’t in the trouble with the law, obviously, Ben, not unlike Troy, seemed remarkably untainted by King Falls’s shady underbelly. Well, underbelly seemed a stretch, the corruption was hardly concealed. He wondered, often, how the hell people like Troy and Ben were supposed to survive this place and come out the other side just as wide-eyed and good to their core as when they came in. That was the thing about King Falls, it changed you, it had changed Sammy.

The bit of trouble Ben had gotten into was because he _was_ so good. He worked at a gas station and Pete Meyers’s thugs had come in and stolen some liquor. Ben wasn’t brazen (or dumb) enough to get into a fight with a motorcycle gang but he had pressed the silent alert button and Pete’s guys had gotten into a bit of trouble.

Of course, that meant that Pete had tagged Ben as enemy number one. Sammy had driven into the school parking lot Monday to find Ben duct taped to the flagpole, _in his underwear._

So Sammy did what Sammy does, he cut a deal. Sammy gets Pete’s boys cleared, they leave Ben alone.

“Sammy, I just want you to know how much I appreciate this, really,” Ben said all wide eyed and genuine.

Sammy shrugged, always uncomfortable under Ben’s gaze. Ben thought so well of Sammy, thought he was some kind of hero, a thing Sammy certainly was not.

It was like Sammy’s life had been cut out of a rather absurd noir novel (absurd since it was also sort of a fantasy because of the King Falls _werewolf problem_.) King Falls was ground zero for class warfare, “the middle class who?” If you lived in the 90909 zip code, you lived the life of the perpetually important, everyone else just struggled to survive.

Sammy used to be one of them, kind of. He didn’t have the money obviously, but being the sheriff’s son allowed him a way in. He was sort of popular, “Shotgun Sammy Stevens.” He had the right friends. For awhile, Sammy really didn’t understand justice and nepotism and corruption. He was just a kid in love with his best friend.

That life couldn’t last though. Not in King Falls. It all went spectacularly pearshaped when Jack went missing. Just… gone. Sammy had seen him earlier that day, the day Jack didn’t come home. They were at a fundraiser at Rose’s for journalism. He, Jack, and Lily had been as lazy as possible. Eating the bacon and pancakes, more than they were serving them, and it had been a great afternoon. Excellent in its mundanity. Jack had grinned at Sammy that day the way he always did, bright and easy and just for Sammy.

Near the end of the day, Jack had pulled him aside, away from Lily, “I have a secret.”

Sammy still didn’t know what Jack’s secret was. Did he know Sammy loved him? Was he planning on running away? Sammy didn’t really believe that line of inquiry, Jack _would not_ have left without him. All their plans to get out of King Falls included getting out together.

Sammy had a hard time lining up that Sammy, the one in Rose’s that day, with the Sammy that he was now. He wasn’t sure what Jack would do about this Sammy.

Sammy’s dad had been convinced Jack’s dad had something to do with it. But when Wright Industries employs more than half of the people in town, accusing their incredibly powerful and rich employer of kidnapping and probably murdering his own kid isn’t particularly popular politically and his dad just couldn’t pin him. The nail in the proverbial coffin came when Tim Jensen confessed. So Keith Stevens, the man who incorrectly went after the grieving father, was ousted and in his place, they put Sheriff Judd Gunderson.

And his friends, they made him pick. Sammy picked his dad, _of course,_ he did. But that meant they all hated him… even Lily, Jack’s sister. _Especially_ Lily.

Keith Stevens opened his Private Investigation firm and Sammy started helping out. Solving some of the stuff Keith couldn’t get around to. It bled into school hours too. His classmates started coming to him, and when his classmates allowances ranged in the _hundreds of dollars_ range, Sammy was all too happy to locate their lost dog or find out who their boyfriends were cheating on them with.

But his most important case remained unsolved, _where is Jack?_ The Tim Jensen thing didn’t add up. There wasn’t a body. He said he’d kidnapped and killed him but then why couldn’t they locate him? And Tim Jensen had been missing for _a year_ when he turned up out of the blue claiming to have taken Jack Wright. He didn’t say where he had gone.

Of course, Gunderson shoved it through anyway. It was in his best interest to keep the Wright family happy.

Sammy wasn’t necessarily sure if his dad was right about Jack’s dad. But he was certainly right that it wasn’t Tim Jensen and letting this guy take the fall meant that no one was looking for Jack anymore.

No one except Sammy, that is. Despite what Lily thought.

Ben gripped Sammy’s shoulder, “come on, man, you have to let me do something to repay you.”

Sammy laughed at that, “you’re not out of the woods yet, buddy,” and then he grinned, “besides you know better than _anyone,_ that I’m not the only one who helped here. Emily did the hard stuff.”  
  
That made Ben sputter and go bright red, which was at least 50% of the reason why Sammy said it. The other 50% was because he didn’t like so much attention on him. Sammy believed in justice but he was not a _good_ guy. That was the whole thing about a noir hero, wasn’t it? Sammy had to live in the darkness in order to protect the light.

Sammy was grateful that having made friends with Ben meant that he also had Emily’s help with things. She was a tech _wizard._ She was the ultimate hacking deus ex machina half the time. Dropping in at the last minute with just the password they needed. She was the one who had hacked into Camelot Hotel CCTV and downloaded the footage. Sure, the King Falls cops were as crooked as they come, but they were also blessedly dumb, standing directly under the streetlamp like that.

~~~

The next day in the courtroom, when all eyes were on the video they expected to be video evidence of Pete Meyers’s guys stealing booze ended up being a shady drug deal starring the King Falls sheriff department’s own, well, Sammy sat near the front so Gunderson wouldn’t miss his wink.

~~~

Ben and Sammy’s friendship happened a couple months after Sammy’s life had fallen apart. Ben was… well, Ben was unlike anyone Sammy had ever met. There was a degree to which everyone else in his life belonged here, in King Falls. They were all characters in a twisted corrupt noir novel, but Ben? Ben didn’t belong in that story.

He fit in more with the weirder part of town, the part Sammy didn’t look into. Sure, Sammy the PI was all for unearthing truths when it came to crooked politicians and dirty cops, but when Ben tried to shine a flashlight on the _werewolf problem_ or the issue with General Abilene well, Sammy got spooked.

That’s why Ben and his mom came to King Falls in the first place. Which was ridiculous, no one should be coming _to_ King Falls, they should be getting out. Ben came fresh faced and excited to try his hand at _apparition busting._

Either way, they had found each other. Well, Sammy had found Ben. Ben had taken a TA position in the secretary’s office because he had moved mid semester and the electives were full. A new kid with often unsupervised access to copy machines and student files? Sammy saw an opportunity.

So, he introduced himself and gave Ben his card, hoping to earn a favor from Ben someday, but Ben had rolled his eyes at Sammy’s pretension and started sitting with him at lunch. Suddenly Ben was his friend and Sammy really hadn’t planned for that.

 **It’s a very powerful thing when someone sees you the way you wish you were.** So there’s little Sammy can do to not let Ben settle at Sammy’s regular table in the cafeteria, where he normally tries to sit alone and settle right next to Sammy’s heart, mending it a little.

~~~

Ben and Sammy met up with Pete after the trial, envelope with the video in hand.

“Sammy Stevens pulls through again, King Falls very own Sherlock Holmes,” Pete said approaching them with a sort of wild half grin, that Sammy couldn’t decide if he liked or not. He decided on not.

“Elementary, my dear Watson.”

Pete held out his hand expectantly.

Sammy laughed exaggeratedly, “oh you think you get to keep this?” Pete’s smile fell off his face and Sammy placed it in Ben’s hand, “no, I think Ben will keep an eye on it as a token to remember the _kindness_ he once paid you by letting your friends off.”

Ben grinned maniacally, and for a second he seemed _much_ taller than 5’6. Pete’s eyes widened, “come on, guys.”

Ben held out a finger as if to shush him, “listen, don’t worry, Pete. I’m not gonna do anything with it, but like don’t tape me to a flagpole again, okay?”

Pete rolled his eyes, “yeah fine, I can handle those terms,” he then turned his eyes back to Sammy, “I guess I owe you a favor.”

Sammy grinned, “I guess so.”

~~~

Sammy was laying on the hood of his car after school when Lily stomped up to him.

“You ready?”

He sat up and looked at her and raised an eyebrow, “ready?”

She rolled her eyes so hard, he was surprised she didn’t burst a blood vessel, “yeah, _Stevens_ ,” she brandished the camera around her neck, “we were assigned to the basketball game in Big Pine.”

Lily Wright. Lily was… well, every school had a psychotic asshole and Lily was theirs. She was pure biting remarks and acid.

She was also _smart._ A fact that drove Sammy bonkers. She used to change her answering machine every day to some “inspirational quote,” and not the pinterest kind, the type you’d read in a big dense text. They were always delivered in such a sardonic way that he could never tell if she was being pretentious or making a joke he wasn’t in on. She was being a douche either way. Sammy supposed she could still be doing that, he wouldn’t know. He stopped calling her a long time ago.

He used to know her really well. He knew her better than anyone really, besides Jack. She had always been sharp edges, but since Jack’s disappearance she was all barbs and _really_ bad decisions. Sammy wanted to worry about her but he couldn’t stop fighting with her for two seconds to remember why he did.

And well, she _hated_ Sammy.

“Shit!” Sammy said, hopping off his car and slapping a palm to his head, “I’ve been working on this thing for Ben and totally spaced.”

Her eyes narrowed just a centimeter at Ben’s name, almost a split second flinch, so fast most people wouldn’t have caught it, but Sammy didn’t miss much.

He didn’t ask though.

“Of course, you did,” but she didn’t slow in her approach, throwing open Sammy’s passenger side door and hopping in.

The familiarity of Lily hopping in his car without question was so achingly familiar Sammy felt something hot behind his eyes, but he ignored it and climbed in as well, “so, I guess I’m driving.”

She rolled her eyes, “well, we’re already at your car, because I had to come find you and we’re not going to waste time going to my car across the parking lot, Stevens.”

He was too tired to argue and pulled out of his parking spot and began driving to Big Pine. It was a little over half an hour away, which was just an _enormously_ painful long time with Lily. They didn’t talk for pretty much the entire duration besides a way too heated argument than what’s necessary for what radio station to play.

The basketball game itself was as boring as you’d expect and it wasn’t until halftime that it got a little interesting for Sammy. He had just sat back down in his spot beside Lily after going to the bathroom when a guy he only vaguely knew from school approached him, nervously ringing his hands.

“You’re Sammy Stevens, right?”  
  
Lily looked up at him too, her eyebrows drawn in what she probably assumed was an intimidating line.

Sammy knew most people were a bit scared of Lily, but he never found her intimidating. Sure she was a bit mean, and had too much money. But she also had enormous insecurities, a father that expected too much, and eyes on her at all times. She was just as much a scared kid as the rest of them. Although, Sammy felt like he only really remembered that when she was doing her best to hide it.

Sammy nodded, and the guy kind of tried a sort of smile, but it came out as mostly a grimace, “I heard you do, like, detective work for people.”  
  
Lily snorted and Sammy shot her a glare, “yeah, I, uh, do _favors_ for _friends._ ”

The guy looked more distressed at that, “listen, I can pay you.”  
  
Sammy shot up and shot him a winning smile, “in that case, sit down, _friend.”_

“Jesus Christ,” Lily said shooting him a disgusted look from his right.

“Oh shut up, Lily, not everyone has daddy’s trust fund to get them into college,” he spat, which quieted her. Both Jack and Lily had always been a bit self conscious about their enormous privilege, especially when it came to Sammy.

“I’m Archie,” the kid said extending his hand to them and Lily looked like it would probably kill her if she touched it, so Sammy shook his hand, “so I sort of got scammed into giving someone $3000 and I need you to help get my money back.”

Sammy balked at that, “I.. how?”

“I just met this guy online and he was, well he was really great, and really sweet. Said he needed help, his dad is this really terrible guy and he wanted to run away and then I gave him the cash and he just ghosted me.”  
  
Sammy was thoughtful for a second, “do you think he’ll respond if you can send him more? Say you got another allowance and if he needs a few hundred more dollars, you can help him out.”

“I mean, I can text him. I don’t know if he’ll respond.”

“Do it now,” the kid leaned over his phone and sent a message.

Lily watched with knitted brows. She knew, of course, that Sammy did this stuff now. She made fun of Sammy, Ben, and Emily, every now and then, referring to them as “Mystery Inc.” But he supposed she had never seen it up close really. It must have been kind of silly to her, Sammy taking on this role as “Teen Detective.”

The catfish responded by the end of the game, and Sammy set up a time and date to meet, quieting Archie’s complaints and promising Archie won’t have to give him a cent, Sammy would meet him.

~~~

Lily pushed the door to the bathroom open following Sammy in, “Sammy, I need a word.”

“Anthropomorphic. All yours, Lily.”

She rolled her eyes, and leaned against the door so no one else would follow them in, “so have you met up with that scammer yet?”

Sammy raised an eyebrow, not understanding why in the world Lily would be interested. It had been about a week since the basketball game, and the case had progressed nicely. Sammy had met the boy on the bench at a park and the kid apparently was a paid actor, named Storm Sanders, hired by someone else to get the money. Idiot had thought he was on a TV show.

He had given Sammy the card of the people who he had auditioned for and Emily had looked at their website and did some online magic to discover it was a couple college kids developing a video game processor of all things and were scamming lonely kids with a lot of money into funding it, essentially.

The kids orchestrating the whole thing were smart, but frankly, Sammy and Emily were smarter, “uh yeah, it’s pretty much closed. We’re going to some KFU dorms tonight, and planting a few bugs around their rooms to get some stuff on these assholes.”

Lily’s eyes widened, “breaking into a dorm room? _Bugging?”_ She looked caught between pained and laughter, “god, who are you, Stevens?”

That stopped Sammy short. He supposed that was completely incongruous to the Sammy Stevens of 16 months ago, and well pretty incongruous to stuff teenagers get up to on the weekends in general.

“Look, Lily, what do you want?” Sammy suddenly felt very tired and Lily never helped with that. Everything about their not friendship was exhausting, the very act of not being friends with her made Sammy feel like he had run up several flights of stairs.

“I just,” she shook her head, “the kid at the game seemed desperate and I wanted to make sure you were taking this as seriously as you were leading him to believe.”

“What? You were worried about _Archie Simmons?_ You don’t know a thing about me, Lily. I literally do this stuff _for a living_ now.”

“I used to! I know you have a real habit of disappearing when things get tough!”

“Okay, what the fuck? You followed me into the bathroom to yell about me about a hypothetical fear of me not finishing a case you have no reason to care about? I’m not wasting my time here.”

Sammy turned around meaning to leave but she caught his sleeve, “no, that’s not--” she paused, “listen, is something going on with you and Ben?”

“ _What?”_

Sammy paled and grasped the side of the bathroom stall. There wasn’t, of course, _anything_ happening between himself and Ben. But the idea that Lily would suspect in the first place meant--

“I just,” she was speaking softly in a way that Sammy was unfamiliar with, “do you even miss him?”

Sammy’s face collapsed and he almost told her in that moment, told her how much he loved Jack, how there wass a bulletin board hidden in his closet with pictures and red string and how he still hadn't given up. That he believed Jack was alive. He almost told her how his mom had left just days after Keith had been voted out of the sheriff seat and how without Lily and without Jack, he had never been so goddamn lonely in his life and Ben was all but saving it. But then suddenly his skin prickled and he felt so angry. So angry that she didn’t know all that already, that she (correctly) assumed he was gay, but (incorrectly) assumed he had just gone on and _replaced_ Jack, like that was easy or possible. That she had turned her back on him when they needed each other most.

He tore his arm out of her grasp, “oh fuck you, Lily,” and he turned around and left before he could see her face harden or shatter, and since he didn’t look, it was both, he supposed, Schrodinger’s Broken Heart or something.

~~~

The plan with the college scammers went well, not flawlessly, but well. They had their friend Ron Begley, since he was _enormous_ , throw on a security guard uniform and pretend he heard a disturbance and plant the bug for them and within the next day they caught them talking about it.

The following weekend, Sammy, Ben, and Emily got all dressed up for their first college party and found the scammer and cornered him with the recording. He went pretty white and with the threat of going to the police over his head, he agreed to pay all the kids back in full.

Sammy decided he could be a party guy if they all went like this.

~~~

The knocking at his window woke Sammy up. He got up groggy, and confused and walked over to it.

He walked to his curtains and nearly fell over when he saw it was Lily. He then let her in, against his better judgement.

“ **Jack always said this town could wreck a person** ,” Lily slurred practically crawling towards Sammy’s bed. She stumbled and he slipped an arm around her and walked her towards it so she could sit.

“You’re drunk,” he said, but she kept on talking over him.

“ **It’s what happens when you’re playing a rigged game** , ya know, Stevens?” She spoke as if she was reciting something she had memorized and Sammy recognized the words like they were the voiceover in his own head, “ **I convinced myself winning meant getting out. But in what world do you get to leave the ring and declare victory**?”

She was laughing and looked a little green and he grabbed the trash can, “ **this is where I belong, in the fight. It’s who I am. I’ve rolled around in the mud for so long, wash me clean and I don’t recognize myself.** ”

She was crying now and Sammy was powerless, “I have to stay here and fight, but without you and without Jack and I have never been so fucking alone, Stevens. At first after he left, and your dad was blaming my dad, I had no one to be mad at but you. I couldn’t yell at Jack, so you were the next best thing. And you know for awhile, it was okay, because maybe we weren’t being miserable together but I was confident in the fact that at least we were both miserable.

“But you have all these _people_ now. And they’re all nice and great and happy and I’m still alone with my shitty friends. Do you know how exhausting it is to only have Dick Casablancas and Maggie Masterson to talk to?”

He almost laughed but then he paused and looked at her, “you just said Jack _left.”_

She looked at the ceiling and he grasped her shoulder and shook her just a little, “please Lily, do you know something?”

She shook her head, “no, I mean, no,” she shook her head and rubbed at it, “I don’t have proof and I don’t… there was a note.”

~~~

That’s where it began really, the getting Jack back, and the Lily and Sammy friends again thing. The first official meeting of the minds happened at Sammy’s dad’s office while his dad was out of town on a case.

“That’s all it says?” Ben asked, staring at the note confusion etched on his face. He had a notebook in his lap, which Sammy rolled his eyes at, but Ben swore by those things, believing that if you wrote enough down then you could start connecting the dots.

His red stringed bulletin board was out, and the note was now pinned right at the center: _save Tim, rainbow lights, tell sammy_

“Do you think Tim Jensen was blackmailed?” Emily asked swinging her legs on the desk, she had her laptop out, running searches with “rainbow lights” and “Tim Jensen” as keywords which unsurprisingly was turning out about as useful as that time Sammy had to find someone’s missing dad named _John Smith._

“Why didn’t you show anyone this?” Sammy asked turning to Lily, the question had been stuck on his mind since she had said there was a note and immediately thrown up in his bedroom half missing the waste basket in front of her. Of course, the implicit question within the question was _why didn’t you show_ me _this?_

“I didn’t find it for a long time,” Lily said not looking at Sammy. She had been embarrassed when she had woken up the next morning on Sammy’s bed with Sammy on the floor curled up in a sleeping bag. She had been trying to be… well not nice to him since, Lily was never nice, but less sharp edged perhaps, “not until after Gunderson was named sheriff and Jensen had already confessed and I…” She looked up at Sammy then guilt etched into every corner of her face, “I was scared, if it meant Tim was innocent, that my dad would be a suspect again.”

Sammy was furious at her for picking her dad over Jack, but maybe that’s how she felt about him too and that’s not what he was doing, so maybe she wasn’t either. So he didn’t say anything and instead turned back to the group.

Before meeting today, Ben and Emily had known kind of what had happened to Sammy before they had become friends with him. They didn’t know he was soul-crushingly in love with his missing friend. But they did know he had recently suffered a great deal of loss.

Lily’s face hardened again, all vulnerability that settled there vanished, “okay, so what does the rainbow lights thing mean?”

Sammy shrugged, “search me.”

Lily was looking at him seriously, and snuck a look at Ben and Emily, “I just, _rainbow,_ do you think…”

This “skirting around topics” Lily Wright was exhausting, and suddenly realizing he was surrounded by 3 out of the 4 people he loved most of the world, even including Lily, he might as well meet it head on, “no, I don’t think it had anything to do with the fact that I’m incredibly hopelessly gay for him, Lily.”

He said it out of annoyance, and a little bit wanting to beat Lily in some sort of mental battle they weren’t actually playing but he regretted the words the moment they had left his mouth, watching everyone’s heads snap to him.

Lily’s eyes were wide, “no, I meant since he was in love with _you,_ you moron, I wasn’t about to out you.”

“Jack wasn’t in love with me,” Sammy said, red in the face and angry at no one but himself.

Lily laughed at that, “for someone who likes to pretend they know everything now, you know _nothing,_ you absolute enormous dummy.” The words out of her mouth were almost fond and Sammy’s heart was growing and shattering all at once and then he felt Ben’s hand on his arm and he took a fortifying breath and it was time to get back to business.

“I really don’t think it’s anything LGBT related, Lily,” Sammy said seriously, “I think it’s gotta be somewhere we’ve gone or seen where maybe he’s hiding something. But I really can’t think _what.”_

“The Science Institute,” Emily said quietly, staring at the note suddenly like she’s seen an apparition, “I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before!”

All eyes snapped to her, “the weird culty religious thing all those actors pay to get into?” Ben asked taken aback.

Emily nodded, and then shivered, she had gone a little pale too and Ben, ever chivalrous, put an arm around her, “we went there on a field trip once, it was before you moved here, Ben, back in middle school.”

Sammy sort of remembered the field trip, but he wasn’t following what that had to do with anything on that note.

“You, Jack, and Maggie got separated from the group!” Lily all but shouted, suddenly remembering.  
  
“No, we didn’t--”

“No, not you and Jack, Sammy, me and Jack,” Emily said. And that threw Sammy. They had all known Emily for a long time, but Sammy hadn’t really started hanging out with her until he had met Ben, “they had stayed behind with me when I went to get a drink of water and then we couldn’t find the group again.” She paused and tapped at her head like she was trying to unlock something, “we found a room. And it was,” she stopped, “I can’t remember it. I remember some people coming in and telling us we couldn’t be in there and I remember a lot of colors, we could call them rainbow lights, I guess.”

She shook her head, as if the act could shake something loose, “I think they made us forget.”

Lily gaped, “how is that possible?”

Ben looked at her, “this town has an actual _werewolf problem_ and you don’t think it’s possible some weird cult is tampering with memories?”

~~~

Just because Sammy had a good time shaking down some asshole who was stealing money from high schoolers at a college party, did not mean he was at all excited about going to a party with _his classmates._

He used to, a long time ago, but that Sammy was not this Sammy and he hated so many of these people now. Ben looked like he could burst he was so excited, he liked talking to new people and it seemed he and Emily were enjoying their conversation with Dwayne Libbydale.

Lily however seemed trapped in a horribly long conversation with Doyle Bevins so he went over to them and tapped on her shoulder, “I’m about to grab another beer, want to come?”

“Thank you,” she mouthed and they moved out of the living room towards the kitchen.

Attending this party was hardly for social reasons, they were actually hoping to corner Maggie Masterson and see what they could get from her on what she remembered of that field trip but she hadn’t arrived yet, so Sammy was stuck _partying_ with 09ers. He was already exhausted.

Dick Casablancas and Greg Frickard were leaning against the island in the kitchen when they walked in and they eyed Sammy distastefully.

Greg sneered, “Wright, you’ve gone back to hanging out with the fa-”

Lily stepped right up to him grabbing him by the collar and pulling him towards her, Sammy might not have found her scary normally, but in that moment, he got it, “I swear to God, Frickard, if you say that word, start to say that word, or even _think_ that word around me ever again, I will scoop out your eyeballs with a melon baller,” she pushed him back and stared at the rest of the people milling about the kitchen, “and that goes for all you assholes, **i** **f you have a problem with Sammy, you’re pretty much dead to me. So just like evaporate or something** ,” she tore open the freezer and grabbed an entire bottle of vodka, passed it to Sammy, and then opened the fridge and pulled a six pack of Miller High Life. She then marched out and flipped Dick off as she went. He threw his hands up, like he was innocent.

“Tell Emily and Ben we’re hiding out back for awhile and just to come get us when Maggie gets here,” she ordered and walked towards the door. He nodded mutely, still not processing that he almost got called a homophobic slur, _okay so people know, how do you feel about that, Sammy,_ and that Lily Wright publicly defended him and was rescuing him from having to be social. It was such an old school Lily Wright good friend move, he felt a little winded.

After finding Ben and Emily, he wandered out back and found her sitting at the edge of the pool, her feet dangling in the water.

He sat down next to her and she handed him a beer and he handed her the vodka. She took a pull and made a face, “do you think this is a real lead?”

Sammy didn’t know, but he wanted to, “no, but it’s more than I’ve gotten in over a year.”

She nodded and handed him the bottle. He took one pull and the put the cap on and put it behind him, she rolled her eyes and leaned back on her hands, “I really fucking hated you, ya know?”

He nodded, “I hated you too.”

She shook her head, “no, you didn’t, maybe at first but come on Sammy, it’s hard to hate someone when you’re doing okay.”  
  
“I wasn’t though, I’m not.”

She looked at him thoughtfully for a second, “I’m sorry about your mom.”

That made him reach for the bottle and take another pull.

“It’s been nice, Lily, having you back,” Sammy said honestly the alcohol making him, like Lily, a little bit less sharp around the edges.  
  
“God, we’re being disgusting. I still think you’re the absolute douchiest person I’ve ever known, but you are undoubtedly better company than Dick and Greg, I’ll give you that. Let’s braid each other’s hair, and make some scrapbooks next time.”

“I’ll bring the nail polish.”

They grinned at each other, breathing in this rare moment of them not fighting, of levity, and suddenly there was Ben and Emily waving them inside and it was go time.

~~~

Maggie’s memory turned out about as useful as Emily’s. Which in on its surface wasn’t helpful, but it did sort of lead them towards the “Emily’s not just being forgetful, your brains were fucked with” line of thought.

“He must have figured something out,” Sammy said, this time they were at Lily’s. It was strange being back here after it had been his second home for so long and then suddenly the home of a stranger’s.

Lily had caught him earlier, staring at the door to Jack’s bedroom, “oh good lord, come on Scooby Doo, go in there, search for clues, and then have a good cry after,” and then she opened the door and shoved him in.

“Where’d you find the note?” He asked, looking at Lily leaning against the doorway, before he started his own careful search of the room.

She nodded towards the vent by the bookshelf, “he used to unscrew that and hide things in there. Like booze and stuff. I looked in it about five months ago on a whim,” she smiled wanly, “I’ll give you some privacy,” and then she left Sammy to it.

He didn’t cry. Sammy hadn’t cried since his mother left, but if he still had tear ducts left he would have wept being in that room again. They hadn’t given his stuff away yet, it was probably hard when there wasn’t a body. He walked over to the desk and placed his palm on it. God, he was _aching_ for Jack. Being friends with Lily again was helping him as much it was hurting him. A bit like physical therapy probably, it had to hurt like shit to teach you to walk again. Jack’s journal was on the table, which he knew didn’t contain really anything useful because Sammy’s own dad had read through it in the early days of the case, but Sammy looked anyway. Just because he wanted to hear Jack’s voice in some small way.

The few pages he flipped to didn’t contain any heartfelt confessions about his deep pining for Sammy, so Sammy wasn’t so sure Lily really knew what she was talking about. The back of the journal contained that spot where you could put phone numbers and addresses, the part that no one actually wrote in but Jack was old fashioned to his core. Sammy liked that his was the first name on the page.

Sammy stopped short though, the bottom number said Leland Hill, the name felt familiar but he couldn’t quite place it, so he pulled out his phone to do a cursory search on facebook and google and right away it popped up. Head of the Science Institute and Jack had his personal number? _Holy shit._

“He must have figured something out,” Sammy said showing them the address page, “and then maybe they took him. He could be there or at the very least they could know something.”

“Let’s call him then,” Lily said grabbing her phone and Sammy stopped her.

“We need to have a reason to be calling and it can’t just be, ‘do you have Jack?’” Sammy said, “if he does have him, we _cannot_ alert him that we’re onto him.”

“I’ll talk to Tim Jensen,” Ben said standing, “people obviously know who you two are, how’re you are connected to him. He might refuse to see you. Mary is my next door neighbor and she’s really hurting, I know her and their kids, I’ll use that as a reason to speak to him.”

“And then we talk to Leland Hill?” Lily asked, “we have his _number,”_ she said it like it was actively paining her to not follow this lead. Which it probably was.

“No, and _then_ we break into the Science Institute,” Sammy said.

~~~

 **“You’re out,”** Sammy approached Pete after school. Pete was smoking in the back parking lot, aptly nicknamed the “Pot Lot.” He was leaning on his bike, his friends long gone for the day.

Pete grinned that manic half grin, that somehow was growing on Sammy a little bit, **“yeah, how many get-out-jail-free cards do you have up your sleeves anyway?”**

 **“Uh, pretty sure that was my last one,”** Sammy says and just to test their alliance, threw his hands on the handle of Pete’s bike, Pete barely blinked. This might work, **“so you might want to keep your felonies to a bare minimum.”**

 **“I am what I am, Stevens. Leopards, spots, you know what they say,”** Pete shrugged and stood up, shaking his leather jacket a little. It was just on this side of too big that Sammy couldn’t muster up the ability to be afraid of him like the rest of the student body. He never thought _Pete Meyers_ would remind him of Lily, but they were both sort of reluctant leaders, stuck in King Falls, and play acting as grownups. Sammy was like them too.

While working on the Jack case with his friends, Sammy had also been helping Pete get out of a spot of trouble on the side. One of the members of his gang had stolen a credit card from Greg Frickard’s grandmother to buy stupid expensive shitty gifts for his 09er girlfriend, including a few nights in the penthouse suite of the Camelot Inn. He let Pete take the fall, so Sammy did what he did best. He had Emily and Ben pretend to have an enormous very public fight in the lobby of the Camelot so the front desk guy was distracted. Sammy slipped behind and downloaded some CCTV information for Emily, and got proof that it was Ernie Salsedo lounging in the Honeymoon suite and not Pete at all.

“About those favors you owe me,” Sammy said stepping back finally, and crossing his arms.

“Ahhhh, Stevens, I was wondering when you’d cash in,” Pete stepped away from his bike and faced Sammy properly.

Sammy knew he was playing with fire getting Pete involved. **The trouble with befriending the leader of a motorcycle gang is that at the end of the day, he’s still the leader of a motorcycle gang.**

“I need your help breaking into the Science Institute.”  
  
Pete did quite a lot of work to keep his emotions veiled as consistently ranging from apathetic to angry, so seeing his eyes nearly pop out of his heads in surprise was a bit of delight to witness, “I thought you said no felonies.”

“I said keep them to a minimum, besides, you won’t actually be the ones breaking in, I just need you to cause a little distraction.”

“Why in the world would _Sammy Stevens_ need to be breaking and entering? I know you fancy yourself a bit of a vigilante justice kind of guy, but this seems a bit much, even for you.”

“Jack Wright.”

Pete appraised him for awhile, “yeah okay, you literally just got me out of jail. Fine. **So what, we team up? Get matching capes? Want to ride in my sidecar, Shotgun?”**

Sammy smiled.

~~~

Troy groaned when Sammy placed a pepperoni and sausage pizza on his desk. Bribery with pizza was not a good sign.

“Alright, what do you need?” Troy said opening the box and taking a slice, eyeing Sammy carefully.

Sammy pulled up a chair and placed his crossed hands on Troy’s desk, “if you agree to this, I’ll owe you big time, Troy, the biggest favor in the history of the favors.”

Troy did not like the sound of this one bit, “Sammy, you know I’m already on thin ice with Gunderson after the gas station booze bust, he doesn’t trust my friendship with you one bit.”  
  
They looked over towards Gunderson’s office and sure enough he was peeking through the blinds at the two of them at the desk. Sammy rolled his eyes.

“I just need you to call for backup when you chase down a speeding motorcycle gang on Friday night during your patrol, I need as many cops busy as possible that night.”

“Sammy--”

“We’ve got a lead on Jack.”

Troy paused at that and finally took a bite of the pizza and chewed slowly, “alright fine, get out of here. I don’t know how in hell you know what evening I’ve got night patrols, but you hardly surprise me anymore, Stevens.”

~~~

Tim Jensen proved to be about as helpful as Maggie Masterson, in that he had almost no new information to give them.

But they parsed out _a lot_ from the little he had said, “Emily, you know how when you think back to that room and the rainbow lights, it’s like you’re in a fog? That’s just how he is. He can’t remember anything and he keeps trying to shake things loose.” Ben paused, “I don’t know how its legal to keep him locked up, even with a confession, it's clear he’s unwell.”

He shot a look to Lily, but continued on, “he’s… when I mentioned the rainbow lights, he _froze._ Just stopped talking for awhile and then started repeating our conversation about Mary and the kids from earlier, it was like he flickered or something. Like someone turned him off and rebooted him.”

They collectively shuddered.

“I think the year Tim Jensen was gone, he was wherever Jack is, and they _did_ something to him.”

Both Lily and Sammy were quiet, afraid if that was how Tim Jensen came back, what could be happening to Jack.

It was Thursday afternoon, the next night they’d be breaking into the Science Institute. For the most part, the plan was set. Emily had already downloaded design schematics and blueprints of the building, none of which gave them any clues to what room Emily, Jack, and Maggie tried to enter that day but it did give them a basic insight about the layout of the building. Emily would stay at the offices at Stevens Investigations, on her computer tracking both the cameras she hacked into as well as police radio coms to warn them when they’d get company.

They had specifically planned on the coming Friday because it was the night of a full moon, that way some on duty police officers would be busy anyway, keeping a lid on the _werewolf problem_ while a few would be preoccupied with Pete’s distraction.

“We can’t count on finding Jack tomorrow night, we’re information gathering, not conducting a rescue mission,” Sammy reminded them all, looking mostly at Lily. Hoping that if their work the following evening proved fruitless, she wouldn’t crumble.

He sighed. To be frank, Sammy wasn’t particularly hopeful. Things had been going too well recently for him, he had Lily back mostly and she seemed to like Ben and Emily. That was not the way things went for Sammy. That wasn’t the way things went in _King Falls._ There were bad people here and he had a sick feeling the other shoe was about to drop.

~~~

It was strange how easy it was, getting into the building at night. The security officer had been asleep as Ben, Lily, and Sammy had walked passed. They weren’t concerned about the video camera picking them up because Emily had already set it to play a loop recorded earlier in the day. She had shut down all alarm systems as well. Really, it was like Emily was a convenient side character in a work of fiction with uncanny abilities that actually didn’t work like that in real life, but Sammy was just glad to have her on his team.

The building was spookily empty, Leland Hill lived next door in a parsonage essentially even though it wasn’t technically a religious institution. Most rooms were just classrooms. Ben had a pair of airpods in and was talking to Emily on them, Sammy had rolled his eyes when he put them in, thinking it as a bit too on the nose, heist movie like, but he had to admit that staying connected with Emily throughout the whole thing was probably wise, “Emily says Leland’s office is down the next hallway if we hang a right.”

Leland’s office seemed like the most obvious place to search first, after that the blueprints had some unnamed rooms near the back that they wanted to check out.

Searching the room was more Sammy’s skill set than Lily or Ben’s, having spent the last year and a half often searching various boyfriend’s bedrooms in hopes of finding proof they were cheating for a scorned girlfriend.

The room felt very sci-fi, all metalwork and white walls. It felt sterile. Ben walked over to the computer, “alright, Emily, help me get on this thing.” He plugged in a little USB that sent the screen over to Emily’s computer, “well, that was too easy.”

Sammy tuned out Ben’s muttering, turning to walk along the bookshelf, “he’s got a lot of books on the mind over here.” He handed Lily a cover: _Unlocking Our Potential,_ “a bunch of stuff about all the stuff a human brain can do that we can’t access. Pretty weird.”

He looked over at a vent near the floor, remembering what Lily said about Jack’s hiding spot. He pulled out the knife attached to his keychain and took out the screws, sure enough inside was a little USB, “hey, Ben!”

He walked over to Ben and handed it to him to put it in the computer, Ben dutifully complied and immediately up popped a file: The Rainbow Program.

“ _Holy shit,”_ they chorused.

~~~

“I don’t know why I’m being kept here!” Sammy half shouted as Gunderson paced the room in front of him.  
  
“Well, son, you trespassed on property that was not yours,” he placed his hands on the table, looking him square in the eye.

“Yeah, on property owned by an asshole that had _kidnapped and performed experiments on a seventeen year old,”_ Sammy sat back and crossed his arms, “listen man, if it had been left to you, Jack probably would still be there, and there wouldn’t be much left of him to save.”

Gunderson sighed and placed a hand to his temple, like Sammy was a chore he was dealing with, “that might have been where you found Jack Wright, but he has no memory of Leland Hill or the Science Institute doing any such thing on him.”

“All the information about it was on the file!”

“A file that is nowhere to be found, that nobody but you and your friends claimed to have seen,” Gunderson said, Sammy could have sworn he was smiling, “all we know is that an alarm went off in Mr. Hill’s office and then we found you three roaming the halls with a perfectly fine Mr. Wright.”

“Perfectly fine? Over year and a half of his memory is missing!”

“So he claims. It looks to us, like a young man ran away from home and decided to come back.”

Sammy nearly screamed, “then why did Tim Jensen confess?”

“Tim Jensen is a very sick man.”

“ **You know what I find really disturbing about you, Gunderson,"** Sammy spat, **"o** **ther than everything** ,” Sammy stood and walked over to him, “is that I know you’re a slimy guy who I know can be _bought._ You act all tough but Leland Hill has something on you too. Or maybe he’s lining your pockets. Either way you’re a dirty cop. And I. Will. Prove. It.”

There was a knock at the door and Deputy Troy peeked his head in, “Stevens, the Wright's are here to pick you up, they posted your bail.”

“I guess you’re free to go,” Gunderson said his voice low, “but watch me, boy, if I see you step out of line again--” he started as they stepped out into the hallway of the Sheriff’s department where Jack and Lily were waiting for him. His eyes filled with tears when he saw Jack. Crying was a habit he’d picked up in the last couple of days that he couldn’t seem to kick.

“Ah, Sheriff Gunderson!” Lily ran over and handed him a card, all sickly sweet and smiling, “we made you this, since you’d worked so hard on Jack’s case over the last year.”

It had a big bird on the front and the words _Thank You_ in swirling letters, “that’s thoughtful of you, Miss Wright! Why don’t you open it and read it aloud, Sheriff!” Troy said with a wide grin.

Gunderson looked at Lily warily but followed suit, “Sammy Stevens and Lily Wright are smarter than me.”

“Oh, you stop it!” Lily said and slapped his arm, lightly with a wide grin. Gunderson looked murderous.

“Ready to go, Stevens?” Jack said placing a hand on Sammy’s arm.

Sammy nodded and the three of them exited the sheriff’s department. Jack’s hand was still pressing on his arm and they walked, and Sammy was hardly processing it.

They’d read what they could about the Rainbow Program in Leland’s office before taking off in a run to find Jack. It was essentially a scientific experiment that could play with folks’ brains, wipe them if needed, and essentially give them superpowers. At first it was all hypothetical, but they needed some guinea pigs. They had a few members of the institute volunteer, but it was so experimental and probably pretty dangerous.

Tim Jensen had volunteered three years ago. He’d had some gambling problems and needed the money. Jack had found out and had gone to look into it, essentially getting caught and turned into an experiment himself. Sammy and Lily assumed that when they had set off what alarm they had in Leland Hill’s office, his people had panicked and wiped Jack’s memory of the past year and sent him out. Better to lose a boy that couldn’t prove he hadn’t just run away than to continue having three noisy kids trying to find a body they definitely still had in their possession.

They had found him wandering the hallways, incredibly disoriented. Sammy had just about burst into tears when he had seen him, walking towards them. His hair was a little bit longer and he had some bad patchy facial hair, but he was _Jack_. Whole and hale and right there.

Then the police had shown up and they had gotten separated, apparently Ben and Lily had made bail pretty much right away. Gunderson had always had it out for Sammy anyway. So Sammy hadn’t seen Jack since their initial reunion.

He wanted to hug him and talk privately, but they had time for that later he supposed.

They exited the building and walked down the stairs where Ben was sitting in his mom’s van, waiting for them. His grip on the steering wheel was white knuckled and he hadn’t bothered to even put the car in park. Sammy threw open the back seat, because Emily was occupying shotgun and flopped in, rolling his eyes at Ben, “Ben, you’re not a getaway car, you’re just my ride.”

“Dude, we were literally arrested.”

“Yeah, for like three days, it’s nothing,” Sammy said feigning nonchalance.

Jack and Lily climbed in on the other side, Jack scooted towards the middle, his arm pressed against Sammy’s, “can we talk later?” He asked turning towards him and Sammy nodded.

They didn’t talk on the way to Lily and Jack’s house. Sammy realized sometime during the drive that Jack and Ben must have properly met in the couple of days that Sammy had been in jail, and Jack had been properly filled in on what had happened.

Sammy moved like a zombie as they entered the house and walked up to Lily’s room he sat on her bed, his back against the wall, with Ben and Jack on either of his sides. It felt a little surreal. Like his life before and after Jack were colliding and he wasn’t sure if he would survive the fallout.

“So you’re all like properly Mystery Inc now?” Jack asked with a wry grin elbowing Sammy lightly.

“Mostly Sammy here,” Lily said pointing at him, “the kid is like Mr. Teen Detective, finds lost dogs and cheating boyfriends. Does it for cash.”

“I do _favors_ for _friends._ ”

“You wouldn’t believe the shit we’ve done in the past year. We broke into a dorm room and bugged it once!” Ben said bouncing on his hands.

“That was nothing, Sammy got Pete Meyers and his friends released from prison _twice._ ”

Jack laughed at that, “you’re friends with Pete now?”

Sammy gave him a wry half grin, “actually kind of, yeah,” he shrugged, “he deals with more than we understand, I think. Plus he helped save you.”  
  
That quieted the group, “I’m sorry I can’t remember more.”

Lily shut that down quickly, “oh come on, Jack, if you remembered you’d probably be suffering from intense PTSD, this is good, we can just pick up where we left off!”

Sammy knew that wasn’t true though. His dad was still a PI and not a sheriff, his family was still disgraced, his mom was still gone, Sammy was irrevocably changed. He was also sort of out now which surprisingly that felt like the least of his concerns. That was the thing about noir heroes, wasn’t it? He had to stay in the darkness in order to protect the light.

~~~

Jack and Sammy didn’t get a chance to really talk one on one for several days. Lily was absolutely glued to Jack’s side which Sammy couldn’t resent at all. Besides he maybe was sort of avoiding Jack.

Not because he wasn’t glad to have Jack back. He truly couldn’t be happier. But Sammy was worried he’d disappoint Jack, that he wasn’t still the guy Jack wanted to be friends with. Or if Lily was right, the guy Jack wanted to _be_ with.

Jack cornered him after witnessing Sammy at work over the lunch period.

“Can I ask you something, Stevens?” Riley Bevins said, approaching them at lunch dragging her brother behind her.  
  
“Ugh, Riley, no, **my word is final, I will not go to prom with you** ,” Sammy grinned at her and she rolled her eyes. Sammy was surprised her eyes hadn’t gotten stuck back there yet.

“Listen, we know you’ll help some friends out for some cash and we can provide a little,” Riley said sitting down. Doyle followed behind her. “You should look more grateful, we’re willing to help fund your little projects.”

“Do I not look grateful?” Sammy said deadpanning, his face set in a straight serious line, “you see this face, Bevins, **this is my over-the-moon face**.”

Riley rolled her eyes, but Doyle spoke, “man, even your happy face is grumpy, dude.”

Riley shot Doyle a look and then turned to Sammy, “listen could you just see if it was Frickard who took the money after the poker party? Doyle won but the money disappeared before we could get it home.”

“ _Doyle_ won?” Lily asked throwing back her head in a laugh.

“I’ll have you know, I’m great at bluffing, _muchacho.”_

Lily glared at him then, her face suddenly serious, “Doyle, **do you not instinctively fear me? Maybe you should make yourself a note.”**

“Why do you think it was Frickard?” Sammy asked with a sigh.

“Besides the fact that he’s a slimy asshole?” Ben said with a scoff.

“What Arnold said,” Riley confirmed and Ben grinned genuinely at her, because he didn’t have the capacity to be rude to anyone, even the perpetually unpleasant, “but I guess it might not have been Greg, there were about six of us playing.”  
  
Sammy was thoughtful for a second, “okay throw another party. Invite the same people, and we’ll play too.”

Riley raised her eyebrows, **“do you even play poker?”  
**   
**“No, but it must be really hard if you guys all play it,”** Sammy said and smiled despite himself, “look do you want my help or not?” She nodded, “alright then, poker party at yours this Friday, we’ll smoke the thief out.

Riley nodded, satisfied, and grabbed Doyle by the collar and pulled him up, “see you Friday, then.”

Jack had watched the interaction with a frown playing at his lips and Sammy permanently did not meet his eyes, “who wants to come with me and play poker with some 09ers Friday?”

Jack frowned at the term “09ers” too. He had never bought into the whole “haves” and “have nots” game the school was playing and the town writ large, although just by being a Wright he was naturally a “have.” As far as Jack could remember, they should have been at that poker party anyway. They should be partying with Dick Casablancas, Riley Bevins, and Greg Frickard. Even if they hadn’t ever particularly liked those people, they were just in their circle by default. It must have disorienting to suddenly wake up and find your best friend scorning them, when to you just yesterday they had been your friends, even superficially.

“Sammy, lets talk,” Jack stood up and looked at Sammy seriously. Sammy’s eyes widened and looked around the table as if looking for an escape.  
  
Lily shook her head and pushed him up, “stop avoiding him. God, it’s like you’re this **giant jackass pinata** , and I have to keep hitting you until you make some good decisions.”

Sammy shot her a look but got up and followed Jack anyway.

~~~

They decided to skip the rest of the school day and had driven to Big Pine. There was a good hike just outside of it that they used to take. Now they were sitting on a boulder deep in the woods, ready to talk.

The drive up had been quiet but not unpleasant, they weren’t avoiding conversation, but just saving it, for this spot in the woods.

“Tell me about Ben,” Jack said quietly.

“Ben is… I don’t know, man, Ben saved me,” Sammy shrugged, “it’s been a hard year and he moved here and reminded me people can be good.”

Jack nodded, the softly, “are you mad at me?”

“ _What?”_

“For leaving, I mean?”

“You didn’t _leave_ Jack, Jack-in-the-Box Jesus.”

“I did though, I mean not on purpose, it’s not like I remember, but I did,” Jack shuddered, “it’s my fault you were alone this year.”

Sammy shrugged and spoke quietly, “no, it’s… **tragedy blows through your life like a tornado, uprooting everything. Creating chaos. You wait for the dust to settle and then you choose. You can live in the wreckage and pretend it’s still the mansion you remember. Or you can crawl from the rubble and slowly rebuild. So I rebuilt.** And I was okay.”

“I like Ben,” Jack said quietly studying Sammy, “I’m glad we have him now.”

“Me too.”

“I--”

“Jack--”

They laughed, and for a second it was easy, “I know you think you’re different now.”

“Think?”

“Yeah, you think you’re all broody and serious and grownup, but Sammy, I still see you, you’re still a scared kid like the rest of us. And the other parts of you, the things you think are better, the fact that you stand up for yourself and are all quippy and sarcastic and Lily-like, that was all there before too. Just a bit quieter.”

They had turned on the boulder and were facing each other, sitting cross-legged, and both leaning forward.

“I need to tell you something, Jack,” Sammy cleared his throat, “I… sort of, I guess I came out in the past year, not on purpose really.”

Jack’s eyes bugged out and his fingers that were resting on his own knees but almost touching Sammy’s spasmed, “you…?”

“Yeah, I’m gay, I guess,” he closed his eyes. Jack was breathing heavily beside him. “Is that, are you okay with that?”

“Am I... “ Jack laughed, “Sammy, it’s like… I know I can’t remember this year, but I was going to tell you something about what feels like a week ago to me."

 _I have a secret_ , the words that had played like a loop in Sammy’s memory for a year and a half repeat themselves in his head.

“If I thought I had felt strongly about this before, Sammy, let me tell you in just like a _week_ for me, it has shifted like tectonic plates crashing. Jack-in-the-Box Jesus, knowing what you did for me, what you’ve been through, it’s like **I’ve always thought our story was epic, you know?** But now, I didn’t even begin to know. **You and me, Sammy. Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined, bloodshed,** **_epic_** **.”**

And suddenly Jack’s lips were crashing into Sammy’s and it was messy and ridiculous but it was _Jack._ And Sammy couldn’t breathe with all of those feelings.

They parted and looked at each other and Sammy leaned into kiss him quickly again, just a quick peck on the lips so Jack would know for sure he was on the same page.  
  
“I thought maybe, Ben…”

Sammy laughed, “no that boy is so gone on Emily.”

Jack smiled and grabbed Sammy’s hand, holding it tightly in his own, “I know the feeling.”  
  
“You sap.”

~~~

Sammy’s life was still cut out of a noir story. But also now kind of a romance and a bit of a fantasy and maybe also science fiction. King Falls was still a town that would change you, but it was like Lily said. Who leaves the ring and gets to declare victory? Sammy and his friends were staying for now. There were still dirty cops and corrupt organizations performing unethical human experiments that needed to be taken down. And who better for the job than Sammy Stevens?

**Author's Note:**

> I also want to make a note about the noir story tag, serious story people out there probably have some issues with my claiming this piece to be noir when it ends pretty well, and it isn't nearly cynical and lose-lose enough by the end.
> 
> I'M SORRY MY NOIR PIECE TURNED INTO JUST A PLAIN OLD MYSTERY/ROMANCE.
> 
> Listen, it's our king falls people living in a noir world, when they're not noir characters. There's inherently a tension there that's hard to write for. I think that's what made Ben such a perfect stand in for Wallace however, because Wallace iiiiisn't a noir character.
> 
> Lily though? Lily definitely belongs in noir stories.


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